As the once-mighty Yahoo struggles to grow sales, CEO Marissa Mayer has been trying to reignite her employees' innovative spirit.

That apparently includes herself.

In 2013 fiscal year, Mayer earned $2,250 for helping invent two technologies, according to documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

No, I'm not missing any zeros. Yahoo gave its superstar CEO an extra couple of grand as a reward for being among the inventors named in two pending patent applications.

The money amounts to a fraction of the nearly $25 million in cash, stock and options Mayer took home last year. But the bonus is loaded with significance. Yahoo is one of the few major corporations in America to offer employees some kind of compensation for developing intellectual property.

The company did not respond to a request for comment.

That Mayer helped invent stuff at Yahoo shouldn't come as a total surprise. After all, she was the first female engineer at Google and holds several patents for her work there, according to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office database. Among them: a server that can improve the ranking of search results, a system for personalizing aggregated news content, and better ways to browse historical materials.

The search, however, did not turn up any Yahoo patents from Mayer.

In the United States, there is no federal or state law that requires companies to pay workers for inventions they create for their employer. According to a report by the American Intellectual Property Law Association, major corporations typically require new hires to sign contracts that state: "Employee agrees to and does hereby grant and assign to Company or its nominee his entire right, title and interest in and to ideas, inventions and improvement."

That hardly seems fair. If an employee develops a breakthrough technology that generates big money for the company, shouldn't that employee share in any revenue generated by the intellectual property? From the perspective of many employers, that worker used company time and resources to create the technology - and, if deserving, he or she can be rewarded through more traditional means, like a pay raise or promotion.

However, in recent years, companies, especially technology firms, have been trying to encourage innovation by offering a direct financial connection between inventor and invention

In Yahoo's case, the SEC filings offer little detail about the company's Invention Recognition Program, except that the award is open to all Yahoo employees. So in theory, a secretary or ad account manager, not just an engineer, can earn some money for a pending patent.

The law association report outlined how such a program might work: an employee earns $1,500 for the first patent application filed and an additional $500 if the patent is granted. For each additional patent application, the company will pay the enterprising employee $700, and $500 for an actual patent. The company would also award $1,250 for every four successful patent applications.

We're not talking about big bucks. But tech firms live or die on the strength of intellectual property, so any incentive that can stir an employee's creative juices is a worthwhile investment. Yahoo valued its developed technology and patents last year at $270 million, according to the company's annual report.

Yahoo could use a little more intellectual firepower. Once a dominant force in Silicon Valley, the company has struggled to stay relevant in an industry now dominated by Google. Despite adding big names like Katie Couric and former New York Times columnist David Pogue, Yahoo has yet to establish a firm identity in the marketplace.

"At Yahoo, there was always conflict between its media agenda and tech agenda," said Brian Acton, an ex-Yahoo engineer who co-founded WhatsApp. "I wanted to focus on the tech agenda."

Judging by the patent compensation program, Mayer wouldn't mind a little more tech at Yahoo.